[lbo-talk] Why High French Unemployment Rate?

[Jason Hecht]

Some money manager on Bloomberg was going on a rant about how France
has had an unemployment rate above 9% since 1992 (according to the FED
FRED database, it has averaged 9.3% from 1992-2011) .

Is this because the France have a more accurate "official" measure,
equivalent  to our all-in "U-6" (1994-2011, 10.2%)?  Or is there a
more nuanced reason?